Membership and its Privileges: The Development of Public Audiences at The Art Institute of Chicago

Abstract

This paper will focus on audience issues facing museums and other public institutions in the United States today, largely through the example of The Art Institute of Chicago, and will begin by describing the early history of membership at the museum. To some degree this paper stresses membership, both because there is more direct evidence about that group, and because members are the most involved and committed publics of museums. Although the Art Institute was somewhat ahead of, and more successful than, most of its peer museums in the United States, its efforts are generally representative of the attitudes and programs of similar institutions.